I have a plastic plate in my head – Gringory

James Iroha (Gringory) was in the thick of the civil war and not only saw but felt the full impact of the carnage. No home indeed, in the whole of the South- east came out of the three-year strife unscathed. If one did not lose a father, it was invariably an uncle, a son, mother […]

James Iroha (Gringory) was in the thick of the civil war and not only saw but felt the full impact of the carnage. No home indeed, in the whole of the South- east came out of the three-year strife unscathed. If one did not lose a father, it was invariably an uncle, a son, mother or even a child. At the end, people wore their sorrows on their faces. Life for the vanquished became one long drudgery of pain…

 

He felt he had to do something to relieve the people of the heavy burden in their chest. Together with Davis Ofor (Clarus), they formed what they called, The Two Comedians. The duo went from one place to the other cracking jokes and dramatizing situations that made people really laugh. There was no limit to where they performed – beer parlours, clubs, bukaterias, anywhere people gathered. Some people misunderstood them, thinking that because of the dire times, they performed solely to get handouts. But they knew their motive and were not perturbed by the occasional sniggers and name-calling. Their happiness always came when the audience reeled in laughter.

James Iroha was also inspired by the fact that Africans readily accept humour and by nature, saw things from the lighter side. He began by writing sketches without titles. He traversed the length and breadth of the South-east, relaying his experiences no matter how ugly in a humorous garb. The public performances soon metamorphosed into what he dubbed, The Adventures of Josephat Zebrudaya Okoro Nwogbo, alias 4.30. But stage was not enough. It was time to hit the mass audience with his humour. And so, he created a radio programme called, In the Lighter Mood, where he played light music interspersed with rib-cracking jokes. The Adventures was soon incorporated into the radio programme which was quite popular with the listening audience. At that time, Nwora Asika whom he describes as a “wonderful broadcaster”  played Zebrudaya. James Iroha ostensibly wrote the programme for Nwora as he loved his interpretation of the role.

When television was restored to the East in 1974, Iroha suggested to the management of the Nigeria Television Authority, NTA, that the programme should go on screen. This was accepted and he was asked to do pilot episodes for them to assess. While some were impressed by what they saw, others felt it was “too explosive”, and might put the nascent station in trouble. The majority decision however was for the programme to go on air.

He was filled with joy. He had always wanted to write and produce the saga of his father, mother, their house help and friends. It was a story fully etched in his mind. Each time he remembered his childhood days, he could not but chuckle. For his father was a rambunctious and ebullient man, not well educated, but who always carried on the air of a well-heeled professor probably in English language. Problem was that his grandiloquence was always misplaced. He turned out a master of sorts in malapropism. It was a game his mother almost beat him to. Anytime the husband and wife had a quarrel, people always gathered. And rather than separate them, they would be reeling in laughter. Sample this: “You are a hopeless caricature of no mean city,” the husband would thunder. Piqued, the wife would reply: “If I be caricature, wetin you be? You are nothing but according to”. The husband would fume and lash out for being called “according to”.

Jame Iroha in conceptualizing The Masquerade, recreated the entire humour that surrounded his homestead. His father, for instance, had a house-help from Cross River State, Etudo, who was the de-facto head of the house as he was in charge of  the finances to take care of all the children. His father called him his “Attorney” and in this capacity, every child had to kow-tow to his whims and caprices. You could fail your examination and go scot free from his father but not Etudo. You had to show him your result slip or else look for your school fees elsewhere. “Etudo was very honest,” James Iroha says this Wednesday morning in his Broadcasting Corporation of Abia (BCA) office, Umuahia. “He was an assiduous worker and members of the family including my father, respected him a lot. Because of his honesty, I decided to play that role to immortalize his name”. The resultant character known as Gringory  was to soon overshadow its creator’s name. “Some people don’t believe I went to school,” the University of Ibadan-trained theatre artiste says. “Some don’t believe I can put on a tie (he had one this day) or can drive a car. They just see me as a houseboy by birth and inclination”. These things do not bother him much. It only underscores the acceptance of the programme which for years, held millions of TV audiences spell bound. “I had to look for my mother and call her Ovularia. I had to look for my father because he liked his name sounding big – Chief Zebrudaya Okoroigwe Nwogbo,” he explains of the characters. “And 4.30  because when it is 4.30 pm, you can’t find my father at home. He is out at the bar.”

Playing the hilarious houseboy for  decades had its toll. “Sometimes, I can’t walk along the street. I can’t go to the market, I can’t do anything hidden. I can’t have a girlfriend because if I go to any girl’s house, the whole world will know.” But the biggest challenge is being able to write the scripts week after week over the years. In doing this, he fell back on the well-worn technique of suspense and surprise. Every week, he had something new, something totally unexpected and each episode usually ended on a cliff hanger. The programme x-rayed the society, bringing out the skeleton in some people’s cupboards but by and large, the selling point of The Masquerade was its undiluted humour. “I wrote Masquerade with my sense of humour,” he says. It was because of the social relevance that it was titled Masquerade. “A masquerade is not a human being and in the African context, it has an unchallengeable authority”, he explains. Some of the episodes had to be put on audio tapes for sale to the public. “It went on fine until the centre refused to hold and we stopped recording”, he says.

For James Iroha, one of the most painful things he had to bear was to rest The Masquerade. He hinged the decision on “greed in some human beings’’. As the creator and writer, he was entitled to some amount of money by way of incentives by his then employers, NTA, but somehow, he never got anything. He signed all the necessary papers and had the figures fully computed on paper. The then sponsors, Co-operative and Commerce Bank, were quite willing to pay, but for years nothing came to him. “They did all the arithmetic of what they were to pay and felt that was too much for one person,” he recalls, sorely. “I said if that is the case, I would have to stop. I reported the case to the Nigerian Copyright Commission and they thought I had a case.” Ironically, the highest amount he ever got paid as an actor on The Masquerade was N250! This was besides the stipends he received as the writer.

However, worse was to come when suddenly, the protagonist, Chike Okpala (Zebrudaya) started producing The Masquerade independently as New Masquerade. Iroha was to discover that when The Masquerade was rested, some staff of the NTA gave him (Okpala), the impression that he could pick it up and produce it on his own. “Chika volunteered,” he says. “He got it from NTA and was producing it independently until he got dried up and dropped it because my shoes could not fit him.” James Iroha believes Chika Okpala was misled. “I have always said it, that you cannot do this thing alone. Although you are playing the role of a protagonist, without your houseboys around, there’s nothing you can do”, he says”. Still, he is hopeful that the comedy programme that for years brought laughter to homes will return to the tube. “Although a lot of water had gone under the bridge, thinking of the public that wants us back, there’s no way we can say no”.

But James Iroha is not just about playing Gringory and writing The Masquerade. At the time the programme was running, he was also busy producing serious drama for television and stage. He produced the Armchair Theatre and equally did a drama series for Imo Broadcasting Corporation (IBC), Owerri, titled, Sensible Nonsense. “It’s a comedy but it’s hard. Towards the end however, it ends a melodrama”, he says.   An accomplished singer, James Iroha has to his credit, a couple of albums on vinyl. Good at the organ and the guitar, his songs are mainly gospel.  “I’m using my talent to praise God”, he explains. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to Comedy and the Arts, the Shehu Shagari administration honoured him with an Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) national award in 1980. “It’s much more than a chieftaincy title”, he says. “I refused to take other chieftaincy titles offered me three times’’, he says.

With his abundant talents couldn’t he have gone it alone? Why did he have to take a job at the NTA, followed by the Imo State Arts Council, Imo Broadcasting Service and then BCA as Director of Television Services?  His reply: “At the time, drama was not emphasized in the East. Here, they think a dramatist is a school drop-out. I decided to take up the job because it was on TV which would give me the avenue to exhibit my talent”. The only thing he adds, “is that I was not properly remunerated”. He is considering seriously stepping out of government service. “The best thing that can happen to me now is to be retired,” he says. He would like to retire to his home and watch the people he brought up and assist them in whatever way he can. Problem is, there is no home to go to. “I’m still a tenant”, he declares. “I don’t have a plot of land anywhere in this country except the one my father left for me. I tried to put something there. The day I die you’d come and see where I live. Some of you will begin to understand. But government can say, Gringory come and take this house. It would relax my tension.”

Such a gesture will also help his failing health. A few years ago, he had to be flown abroad for neuro surgery, courtesy of Colonel Moses Fasanya, the then military administrator of Abia State.  With the surgery, a plastic plate was embedded in his head. “I have a plastic plate in my head,” he reiterates. He sits back now and almost in a whisper says: “I think I have done my best. I need to relax”.

But there are so many things he still plans to do. Like turning The Masquerade into home video and producing a script for video he calls, Appointment with Trouble”.  “It could be sold anywhere in the world. I’m going to produce it before I die,” he quips. He is also working on his personal memoir titled, Sensible Nonsense. “It’s about me. My laziness to write. All the humorous people I’ve met, etc”.

So how does he feel about it all? You ask.  “It is okay,” he replies. “I appreciate the honour done me in this country. A good artiste prefers honour to material things.”

Really?

Culled from Glimpses of our Stars (based on an interview with James Iroha in Umuahia in 1998 by Oji Onoko)